I Used To Know You So Well
by blacksouledbutterfly
Summary: He treats it like some petty form of bickering, like she's angry with him for doing something mundane like leaving the bathroom light on all night or forgetting to lock the doors when its much more complex than that. Abby/Henry


He treats it like some petty form of bickering, like she's angry with him for doing something mundane like leaving the bathroom light on all night or forgetting to lock the doors when its much more complex than that. It's anything but mundane, anything but simple. Its an all consuming and suffocating kind of anger, one that shakes her to the very core and threatens to eat her alive like an animal living in the pit of her stomach and yet at the same time its almost suffocated by affection.

(Her body shakes with the uncertainty of all that she's feeling.)

He smiles at her like a little kid would when they've just received the only gift they truly wanted for their birthday, whispers truths that burn her ears like acid, gestures with his too clean hands, hands that should be stained with the blood of everyone he had killed to get her in that room with him.

(His brother, his father, her friends, his friends; his fiancé and her father and Nikki and Shane and Kelly. Everyone he killed whether by his own hands or the hands of another.)

He explains to her that he loves her; explains to her the plan; explains to her how he had used his father, that dangerous and feral man that lived in her head for seven years and walked in his son's shadow, sustained by the destruction he left behind, by the monster he had turned his son into.

He tells her he chose her; tells her she meant more to him than his father ever could; tells her the words she doesn't want to hear but he's all too happy to say; talks to her about twisted desires and even more twisted plans; talks about the shedding of blood and the slicing of flesh and of working alongside a demon in a man's flesh.

(If she had eaten anything she feels like she would vomit all over the floor until she passed out.)

He whispers to her through the door, talks to her about something she doesn't even remember, a childhood conversation that she can't even begin to process in her head; he tells her that he did this for them, that they can be together forever, just the two of them like they had both wanted as kids; he tells her that he made his choices and the sacrifices for them, a smile in his voice that she doesn't even need to see to feel sick all over again.

He tells her he'll wait until she's ready; tells her that he'll wait until she's able to look at him again; he tells her that he'll wait for the last thing that she can imagine ever wanting to do again.

(She wishes she were deaf and blind and mute so that there would be no way for him to reach her; she wishes she could go back and shake herself on that day and tell her to watch what she wishes for because it might just come true.)

He lets her back him down the stairs, smiles at her in an almost mocking way, lets her play tough, lets her feel like he's actually intimidated; he watches the blood pool around the place where the glass is pressed into her skin; he goes over everything all over again, watches her disbelief, watches her denial.

He watches her calmly; he speaks to her like he would a child. He lets her practically beg for it all to be untrue; he watches her deny and try to make sense of it all in her head; watches her cry and watches it switch, watches her suddenly grow and strengthen and smash the window to the storm door and take off running; he runs after her, calling out her name, following her through the wooded area, running the way they used to as children.

(She doesn't feel the cut in her hand; she doesn't see where she's running. Her blood just pounds in her ears like drums going off; his voice just echoes behind her like an unheeded warning.)

Later he brushes his fingers through her hair, tells her that it'll all be over soon. He tells her that he wants to be there for her, that she'll always have him; he tells her that its time to say goodbye to the only man she's ever loved, tells her that he'll wait for her downstairs, ignores her true meaning when she says that she just wants everything to be the way it was, pretends that she means with them when they were happy and there wasn't this wall between them that he created of flesh and bones and bound together with the blood he's washed clean from his hands.

He watches her like a lover would; touches her like a brother would; thinks of himself as both things to her and neither and a million other things and nothing rolled up into one. He wants her more than he's ever wanted anyone, wants to touch her skin and taste her mouth; he wants to own every part of her but refuses to force her because he knows she'll eventually give in to him.

(She bites her tongue to keep from screaming when he touches her; cries silently now; swallows against the bile in her throat at his cheerful voice and soft fingers and against the inevitable outcome of this goodbye he's forcing down her throat.)

Moments ago he had this look on his face like a kicked puppy; moments ago she was alone with him on a cliff; moments ago he proclaimed her to be his home, claimed that it all depended on her and this island he has made his own personal cemetery of betrayal. Moments ago she was running from him with nowhere to go.

But now his blood stains her hands; now his eyes are wide and his mouth hangs open; now she's lowering herself to the ground as he slowly heads towards it, the handle of the blade still in her hands, his hands against the part against his body. Now she's watching him with his teary eyes and his cloudy vision; watching him as he sniffles and looks all at once like the boy she grew up with for a moment.

She watches him as he bleeds, listens as he whispers he loves her; she watches him fall to the side as she lets go of the handle; watches him fall slowly into the water as her hands go up towards her mouth, unable to believe she had just done such a thing; she watches him with his eyes closed and the waves lapping around his body, his hair darkening in the surf.

She watches him and realizes she doesn't recognize him at all.


End file.
